2.5 Acres enough??

I have 2.5 acres of land and I want to use some of it for a barn with an apartment loft. I do pl;an on keeping my horses in the bar at night and let them out all day in the pasture. Has anyone lived in an apartment loft, where the stalls are on the first floor and the apartment is on the second floor? Is it alright to live in permanently? The barn with the apartment loft is 1296 sq. Ft and it has four stalls, but there is another barn with an apartment loft that is 1728 sq. Ft and it has six stalls. I like the one with 1728 sq. Ft because it has more bedrooms and bathrooms. But I won't need six stalls, because I plan on buying two horses. So what should I do with the extra stalls?

Here is the website where I saw the apartment lofts.
http://www.barnpros.com/products/apartment

Well of course the bigger one would be dreamier to have but if you got the smaller built one, you could have a bigger pasture for the two to go out in during the day. Just make sure that your not going to need more stalls later on. I wish I could live in one of those. You could just get up in the middle of the night and go visit the horses.

You could convert a stall into a wash rack, a tack room, a feed room, tool shed, possible extra hay storage or just combine 2 stalls into one to give you horses a little extra room if you want...you can always find ways to use extra space. I love the idea of living right over my horses :) Just pay extra attention to fire hazards and I think it would be awesome.

Well put Sara! You can always find a use for the extra space! Especially when you are building on 2 1/2 acres.. It would possibly mean less out buildings. Sounds really cool...

You have to check with zoning. For the town I currently live in, you need 1 acre for the house, 2 acres for the first horse and 1 acre for each additional horse. (4 acres in total)

Though it seems like it would be an awesome thing to do!

Really Appy? I think here you can have a horse pretty much anywhere on anything if your not within the city limits. County rules are a lot more lax I guess. I think here you have to have 1 acre paid for before you can build a house on the land.
As for the barn/loft, its unbelievable how much stuff you can accumulate with horses and just country life in general. I have 2 barns and a garage and they are all put to use. Between hay, tractor and implements, lawn mower, trailers, boat and vehicles they're all full.

I'm serious Vida. That's just for Andover though, not sure about surrounding towns. I saw a few places 2 acres and under that had a barn and all.

I just don't want anyone fining your or taking the horses away if you're in violation of any zoning things.

Call the County Clerk for any restrictions. Most counties themselves don't have any, but a lot of developments have restrictive covenants. In our county (outside city limits), there are no restrictions on livestock...many people have true backyard horses..

For sure check on zoning and laws and such before you make any big moves, but that sounds like a dream situation to me! And yeah, like someone else said, you can always convert the empty stall space into other stuff and then have it available if you should ever need it (for more horses perhaps??) :)

Yeah I agree with Appy. In my area you have to have 2 acres for 1 horse and then every additional horse you have to have another acre. So lets say you wanted 3 horses you have to have 4 acres. I think its kinda dumb but its the rules. And where my gramma lives (which is the next town over fro me) you have to have THREE! Acres for one horse then if you wanted more horses you have to add on 1 more acre. I think that is a stupid rule...